


The Methodical Approach

by darkrogue1 (Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse)



Series: Hear the Nightingale's Song [8]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Background Beverley Brook/Peter Grant, Gen, I'm still confused about what Peter is to Nightingale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 15:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12684771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse/pseuds/darkrogue1
Summary: Set after the Hanging Tree. Peter Grant is looking to identify the elusive bird he sometimes wakes to, and takes the methodical approach.Beta-read and edited by Theway





	The Methodical Approach

**Author's Note:**

> Because when I first read Foxglove Summer, I found that bird call on the first try. You know, the one that sounds like "a very high-pitched pneumatic drill".  
> And because while I don't remember Peter knowing or describing a lot of birds before, suddenly, in the Hanging Tree, he describes a magical attack in a way that makes me think he studied birds. "with a noise like a hummingbird...if hummingbirds weighted twenty kilos and ate rats for dinner"  
> So my mind tried to make sense of it and fill the gap.  
> But really, Peter, you should check and TIE the suspects you know first before extending the search to the whole universe.

Today was promising to a brilliant blue-skied day, and I didn't have to lit a light to see my way as I sneaked to the tech cave. Not that I had to sneak, exactly, but I was still careful not to make too much noise. I didn't fear waking Nightingale up or disturbing Molly, but I wanted to keep the fleeting half-awake state I was in, to keep clinging for the longest possible time on the edge of my dream and its soft remains and echoes.

 

This week had been a long series of trials, keeping us out on odd hours, and I had had nearly no rest, very little interaction with Beverley — nevermind a tea-time shared bath or more pleasant activities. I'm sure Nightingale didn't stop either, not even for some sneaky rugby.

 

So, as always after a stressful time, I had the dream again. It’s been this way ever since Herefordshire.  It’s not my usual regular dream with Lelsey and Beverley, which strangely is the only one I remember, but the one I wake from content and relaxed, and listening to this mysterious bird song.

 

I opened the door to the tech cave and switched the master switch on before starting the computer. We had talked about dreams once, me and Abigail, in front of my mum, and she had been incredulous of the fact that I never remember mine. With me learning magic, she had said, she would have expected it to be one of the first things I would learn. Dreamwalking.

 

Well, I most certainly do not dreamwalk, but I do have this mysterious dream I almost don't remember and I don't even begin to understand, and as much as I don't like to see disappointment on my mom's face, I don't like not to understand things. This is why I have recently taken an interest in ornithology: to find that damn bird.

 

I opened my file first, the one with a list of birds in alphabetical order — in English; I deal with too much Latin on a daily basis to look at it in my free time — and searched for the next bird on my list to listen to its song.

 

At first I had started rather randomly. The thrumming call of the bird of my dreams kind of reminds me of a cat's purring, so I googled about ‘birds making cats' sounds’, which led me to a certain cockatoo, and cat and bird videos on youtube. But then I got distracted by birds imitating lightsabers and Star Wars sounds... let's just say that this particular session hadn't be very productive at all.

 

So I compiled a list, and now, when I wake from the dream, I come to listen to birds for as long as the memory of the song will stay with me.

 

So far the hummingbird is the closest fit and my best suspect, but it’s not quite right. I keep note of potential imitators on a side list of course, but they must have something to imitate in the first place, right?

 

After what seemed a depressing amount of jays, the magical music was gone from my memory, leaving only the whisper of an impression, like disappearing vestigia. I shut down the computer and prepared to join the others for breakfast.

 

Maybe it is a mystical bird, and I guess that if I can't find it by the end of my list, I'll have to strongly consider that possibility. I made a note to add that question to the long list of my queries about magic. Were there magical birds? Gryffins, phoenixes,  blue birds, fire birds and the like? And if there were, did someone ever get to index their calls? But this will go to the bottom of my list; I don't know if I want to know this strongly enough to waste a reward-question on this and ask the Nightingale.  


End file.
